


The First Revelation

by Murf1307



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Drug Addiction, Gen, Mental Health Issues, amanda - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows, and he knows, but still, the dance persists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Revelation

**Author's Note:**

> I just find Spencer and Amanda's interactions incredibly fascinating. No romance. Because ew, she's the UnSub.

It's been two years since Adam disappeared; Amanda knows this, though time hardly passes here. She doesn't care. She's keeping Adam safe from the people who would punish him for her crimes.

The only real indication that the world outside keeps turning is the regular visits of Dr. Reid. He's cut his hair now, and something else has changed in him. She needles him about that, mercilessly, telling him he's a fool and asking what else he's failed to do. He flinches, always does when she talks about failure, because he knows what it's like to fail, of course.

Tonight, the air in the room is different, though; absolutely and completely. A month has passed since she first saw the sharp new failure in his eyes, but she sees it stronger now, coupled with fear.

"Dr. Reid," she warbles, breathily. "How much longer 'til you give in?"

"I'm not giving in." His voice is soft, but certain. He is always like that, with her. It's as if he can't be anything but that, when he's with her. Adam was never this certain with anybody; she's sure of that.

But the doctor reminds her so much of Adam, always has.

She wonders who hurt him so bad that he keeps coming back to her, because she knows he sees somebody else when he looks at her and looks for Adam. He loves saving people, she decides, and there was somebody like Adam that he couldn't save.

"You remind me of him, y'know," she whispers, just a little conspiratorial. "Makes me wonder who hurt you."

He looks her straight in the eyes and lies to her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She looks at him, doubt dripping from every pore. She tilts her head back and takes a drag from her cig, glad that they let her smoke around him. It gives her a sense of power, because she could burn something and he couldn't stop her.

"Come off it, Dr. Reid. You've got it in your eyes. That look he used to have when we'd look in th' mirror."

He ignores her, instead saying, "You've got something of a fixation with mirrors, because every time you look into one, you see yourself for who you really are." He pauses, as if he's wanted to say this forever. "I think you see yourself, and hate Adam for being the one this body belongs to. You hate seeing yourself in this body. I think Adam stopped mattering to you the moment you stepped into these doors."

She snarls. "You don't know anything. You don't know what it was like!"

"I don't. But I know that he's suffering. I know that you do what you do to dominate and control. Once, maybe, it was about Adam. It isn't, anymore." He pauses. "And you don't know anything about me, either."

"Tell me, then. Tell me who you couldn't save. Tell me who you see when you look at me, Doctor."

He closes his eyes. She knows she's won.

"No."

She starts. She hadn't expected that. "What d'you mean, 'no?'"

He blinks a few times. "It doesn't matter. I'm here for Adam, and I won't stop looking for him until you help me find him.

"He's not comin' back, Dr. Reid. I'm keepin' him safe." Her voice goes rough and husky, almost in Adam's octave. She lounges back on the couch, looking up at him through lidded eyes.

"You're killing him. Slowly. Someday, he'll be so far gone that even you can't let him go." He sits down beside her.

She growls, minding how guttural her voice sounds and hating it like she's never hated anything else in her short life. "I'm keeping him safe. I've always kept him safe, because that's what I'm meant to do. I maintain those college boys had it comin'."

"No one deserves to get raped and killed, Amanda."

He sits there, staring across the room, into the mirror. He's looking at himself, not at her reflection. "I see a lot of death, Amanda. I work with it. I figure out the details of how death happens to good people and bad people. I bring killers and rapists to justice. I think I know that no one deserves what you did to them."

She notices something, then; his hand in gently resting on the bend of his right elbow.

"When was the last time you shot up?" she asks conversationally.

He goes tight, still. He can't lie to her about this. She can practically hear the gears in that big old brain of his turning. Finally, they whir to a stop. "Four years ago."

She's impressed. Most people can't go that long.

"I didn't want it," he clarifies, eyes going tight shut. "I didn't want it, but he gave and gave and then I was taking."

She knows what that's like. She remembers the first time Adam shot up, and the high that followed. It was a sneaky thing, that addiction. For a while, she'd been close to becoming a crackwhore to pay for Adam's habit. _Her_ habit.

"Who?" she asks.

But he doesn't tell. He has his secrets, it seems, ones that even she can't worm out of him.

At the end of the visit, he gets up and leaves and does not bid her farewell, and she crosses her legs and does not try to think of who the "he" just might be.


End file.
